


more than just words on a page

by sarahcakes613



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bureaucracy, M/M, No Dialogue, Pre-Relationship, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:41:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25699006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarahcakes613/pseuds/sarahcakes613
Summary: Rafael and Sonny both grow up knowing pieces of who their soulmate is, but until they actually meet, it's just words on a page.Bingo fill for "A book that describes how your soulmate is going to be".
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 57
Collections: Barisi Soulmate Bingo





	more than just words on a page

Rafael is eleven the first time his mother takes him to the local branch of the Office of the Soulmate Directory. The notice arrives in early March, and he is distracted by the slushy puddles that line Jerome Avenue as Lucia hurries him down to the subway.

When they get there, they are ushered into a big open room that looks like the reading room at the library. Rafael cranes his neck, looking up at the painted mural on the ceiling. It shows the entire zodiac, with constellations, and he finds his in a corner. It looks more like a giant fish hook than a scorpion, he thinks.

A tall lady with bouffant hair and rhinestone glasses slowly flips the pages until she finds Rafael’s name. She tilts the book so that Rafael and Lucia can both see the page, and there, gleaming in silver cursive under his own name, is the name of his soulmate.

_Dominick Carisi, Jr._

His mother frowns. “ _No podía ser cubano?_ ” she mutters, as Rafael sounds it out, feeling how the name sounds on his tongue. He wonders if his soulmate would like being called Nicky.

The name is the only thing listed, and the bookkeeper explains to him that it’s likely Dominick is just a baby, and no qualities or descriptions have been revealed yet. She writes out the name on a piece of scrap paper for him to take home, and tells Lucia to bring him back in a few years.

Rafael puts the paper in a cigar box when they get home. It’s where he keeps his most important things, like the only photograph he has of himself with his abuelito, and the piece of sea glass he found on a class trip to Orchard Beach.

The next time Rafael goes to the OSD, he is fourteen. He goes with his two best friends, the three of them giggling awkwardly as the bookkeeper looks at them from overtop her spectacles.

Eddie is an anomaly, an Unlisted, but Alejandro’s soul mate is named Yelina Álvarez, which happens to be the name of a girl who has just transferred into their school. The book says she will be brown-eyed, outgoing, confident, and loyal, and Eddie and Rafael both elbow Alex excitedly, because those all match their new classmate.

Rafael’s page has filled out some since his first visit, but it’s still sparse. He now knows Dominick will be clumsy, with blue eyes, and he will be a devoted uncle. Rafael is an only child, which means Dominick isn’t. He wonders what it would be like, growing up with siblings, and if he will get along with his soulmates family. He hopes they don’t respond the way his mother did, muttering to each other “ _non potrebbe essere italiano?_ ” when they see his name.

High school is a blur of hormones and homework, and he doesn’t think about the book or Dominick Carisi, Jr again until he is eighteen and cleaning out his room because he needs something to take his mind off of college admissions.

He finds the cigar box, and inside, the slip of paper with his soulmate’s name on it. He’d be just a kid still, but old enough that he’ll have started to develop his qualities, and Rafael wonders what the book says now.

A lot, it turns out. Rafael stares at his page, which now has a full two-columned list of Dominick’s qualities and descriptors. He’s going to be taller than Rafael, not that that is difficult, he’s going to be generous, a good cook, and he will love the smell of freesias. He’s going to be hard-headed, reluctant to ask for help when he needs it. Someone who shoulders everyone’s burdens on top of his own.

Rafael’s heart pangs for the man this child is going to grow up to be.

It’s weird, reading about a person who simultaneously does and does not exist. Schroedinger’s Soulmate, Rafael thinks. He’s not even ten yet, and he probably hasn’t been brought to look in the book yet. He’s out there somewhere playing in the dirt with no idea that his soulmate is about to go off to college.

There are protocols in place for age discrepancies like theirs. Before he leaves, Rafael fills out a disclosure form, giving the OSD permission to release his contact information to Dominick when the boy turns eighteen. In the meantime, he has his own immediate future to think about.

*******

Dominick ‘Sonny’ Carisi, Jr. is eleven the first time his parents bring him to the Office of the Soulmate Directory. It’s a rare and special treat to go out without all of his sisters, and Sonny delights in having his parents attention to himself.

The room the books are kept in is huge, bigger even than the nave at St. Anthony’s, but instead of the stations of the cross, the stained glass windows cast shadows of constellations onto the marble floor. He traces the shadowy vee of Pisces with his toe while his parents talk to the bookkeeper.

When the book is opened to his name, he peeks over his ma’s shoulder to see silver cursive spelling out the name _Rafael Barba_.

His mother frowns, muttering to her husband, “ _Three so far and not one Italian in the bunch_.”

Dominick Sr. just smiles and points out that with a Spanish name, at least this one might turn out to be Catholic.

His page is nearly full, three columns of descriptors and qualities listed under his soulmate’s name. Rafael will have green eyes, he will be snarky and perpetually under-caffeinated, quick to temper and slow to apologize, he will be dedicated to justice above all else, and he will believe in the laws to uphold it. He will almost always be the smartest person in the room.

Sonny knows Rafael has already signed a disclosure form, and in seven years he will be permitted to look at it. He feels bad that Rafael will have to wait so long, and he hopes the older man is not disappointed that his soulmate is ten years younger than him.

Sonny begins hovering around his father as he reads the paper in the morning, carefully folding sections into his backpack as Dominick finishes with them. He doesn’t understand everything he reads, his legs dangling off a swing at recess, but he’s a fast learner, and he’s determined not to embarrass his soulmate when they finally meet.

He begs his parents to take him with them when it is Bella’s turn, so he can see if there is anything new, but they refuse, reminding him how excited he was to go without his sisters. When he turns 16 he gets his learner’s permit and convinces Gina to act as his supervising driver so he can go into the city and look in the book again. There are two new entries on his page. His soulmate will snack on baked goods when he is stressed and he will have a beautiful singing voice.

Sonny hoards these new bits of trivia away with the others, and with only two years before Rafael’s disclosure is made available to him, he starts teaching himself how to bake.

*******

Rafael is living in Brooklyn, clawing his way up the ladder in the ADA’s bullpen the year his soulmate turns eighteen. It’s a slushy March day much like the one when his mother first took him to the OSD and he gets home and collapses face first onto his couch, only to be drawn from his exhaustion by the phone ringing on the side table.

He answers it, his voice partly muffled by the couch cushions that have accepted him as one of their own. And then he sits up, all traces of fatigue gone, because the stuttering voice on the other end has just introduced himself as Dominick Carisi, Jr.

He isn’t just turned eighteen, he is _literally_ just turned eighteen, his birthday was yesterday and he has been sitting, holding onto Rafael’s phone number, for the better part of a day now.

It’s a Friday, which means Rafael is free to meet Dominick – Sonny, he asks to be called Sonny – tomorrow morning. They agree to meet at Prospect Park and before he hangs up, Sonny asks for Rafael’s mobile number as well.

It buzzes less than a minute later with a selfie, and a text that says _now u have my face, can i have yours?_

He studies the photo carefully. There are the blue eyes, as promised. Sonny is leaning against a wall, smiling directly into the camera. There’s a slight pout to his lips and Rafael can’t tell if it is intentional or not.

He opens his front-facing camera and frowns as he tries to position himself in the best light. He gives up on best and tries for not-terrible, and finally satisfied with the result, he sends it to Sonny.

There’s no reply, which is for the best if Rafael wants to be at all well-rested before they meet tomorrow.

*******

Sonny doesn’t sleep at all that night. He bakes two cinnamon-streusel coffeecakes, wrapping one carefully in foil once it’s cooled. The other one is left on the counter, a combination bribe and thank-you gift to his parents for letting him take his father’s car so he doesn’t have to navigate the ferry and subway on such a big day.

He manages to eat up some time by losing himself in the selfie Rafael sent him. His book had said his soulmate’s eyes would be green, but the word is pale in comparison to the colour he sees, the shifting shades of jade and pine and just the faintest hint of a sage grey, although that could be a result of the shirt he is wearing.

The clock finally ticks over to a reasonable time for him to leave without being awkwardly early. He gets to the park at five minutes to meeting time, and he takes a minute to breathe deep, centering himself. He’s got nothing to worry about, he’s only about to meet the man destiny has chosen for him is all.

He unfolds himself from the car and grabs the cake from the passenger seat. He makes a conscious effort to slow his feet down, but he can only make it take so long to walk the 100 yards from the car to the gazebo they’ve agreed to meet at.

Not that it matters, because Rafael is already there waiting for him, holding a large wrapped bouquet of freesias. He leaps up from the bench when he sees Sonny walking towards him, the flowers out in front of him like a shield.

There is a moment of awkward silence as they face each other, both uncertain of what the next step is.

*******

Rafael holds the flowers out to Sonny, who trades him for a foil-wrapped dish of some kind. He brings it tentatively up to his nose and is thrilled to smell cinnamon and sugar.

Sonny is holding the flowers up to his face and smiling, a small shy thing. Rafael sees a hint of dimple, and it’s intriguing, he wants to see just how deep the dimple can get, and what sort of things cause it to appear.

That’s the thing about the book, Rafael muses. It’s good, knowing ahead of time what kind of person you can expect, but it still doesn’t entirely prepare you for the reality of this person who destiny has deemed to be your soulmate. Rafael knows Sonny before he’s even met him, but he also doesn’t, not at all.

Looking at the younger man, brought so easily to a blush by a simple gift of flowers, Rafael thinks he’s going to enjoy learning just who his soulmate really is.

**Author's Note:**

> Writing this mostly just drove home how much my writing has changed over the years and how clunky it feels for me now to write a story without dialogue wow.


End file.
